Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Don't Tell the French That Barack Obama's Middle Name, Hussein, Should Not Be Mentioned…

You know, of course, about the controversy in the United States about using Barack Obama's middle name when referring to the Senator from Illinois. Hussein t'is, and why referring to the name is beyond the pale might seem strange, offhand, when most people know about the (respectively English, Irish, and Italian) middle names of Ronald Wilson Reagan, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

It is true that the name is Muslim, that Hussein was the name of a foe of the United States, and that both (both Muslims in general and Mr Hussein in particular, that is) are known to have given Americans, and Westerners, a few headaches over the past few years. Still, to suggest that Barack's middle name provides a direct link with Saddam Hussein, directly or indirectly, seems specious indeed. Like saying FDR's Germanic-sounding name in the World War II era was a sign to keep one's distance from the New York governor.

Unless you're French, of course. As any Amazon.com reader knows (from whichever language Amazon website he orders from), they get a regular (a weekly?) email stating something to the effect that

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Such-and-Such-a-Title have also purchased Similar Title by Such-and-Such-an-Author. For this reason, you might like to know that Similar Title will be released on Such-and-Such a Date. You can pre-order yours for just $(Price-of-Item) by following the link below.

In that capacity, it might interest some that people (like myself) who ordered Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) when it came out (two and a half years ago) all seem to have gotten the email below, which reads as follows…

Incidentally: FYI, the translation of BHO's book loses the unconventional "from" form in French, making the title sound like a less distinctive Dreams of My Father (the only way to keep the original meaning would have been to make the French title much longer, say, as Les rêves qui me viennent de mon père)…